Within a Warrior's Heart
by maximsk
Summary: The Ebony Warrior is among the greatest warriors the world has ever seen. But even after taking part in the trials up to Alduin's return and beyond, and even after meeting so many other heroes of Skyrim, he faces his reality alone. All it would take is for someone to see him as something besides a savior. And that someone might come from the most unlikely of places.


**This story takes place after the events of my story The Shadow Unending. Zaryth belongs to countess z.**

Fredas, 4:23 PM, 6th of Mid Year, 4E 202

Dragonsreach

Kamian was really getting used to this room.

He'd been in here for over a week. Or, rather, he'd been _awake_ in here for over a week. Before that, he'd been asleep for a good while longer.

Turned out that using the power of the Thu'um every fifteen seconds for an hour straight wasn't good for the body. The last thing he remembered was watching the last of the ash clear out of the sky over Whiterun. Then, according to the people who'd been there, he'd just collapsed. And gone right into a coma for two weeks.

He hadn't even been able to go back to the home base in Blackreach. Even now, after a week of convalescence, he was still mostly stuck in bed. This wasn't fair. He wanted to get up and move around again, and stay that way. But there wasn't any way to speed this up. He'd been fraying the bond between his soul and his body. That took only time to heal.

They'd put two double beds together, end-to-end, just to let the Redguard rest in here. Perks of being the prophesied Dragonborn. He got to be eight feet tall and built like a standing stone. They'd put him in the guest chambers, and put two beds in it.

He liked the feeling of the straw mattresses underneath him. They were surprisingly soft. He figured he could get used to that.

So he'd been in here, staring at the sloped wooden ceiling, watching the one mottled rectangle of direct sunlight from the window crawl its way up the wall. The healers had said that he was in mental healing, which meant he wasn't supposed to strain himself with any rigor of any kind. He couldn't even read books.

What kind of nonsense was that? Reading books was the best. He'd already gotten over the fact that there was a war going on in the south and he wasn't invited—that he had to spend his time up here recovering instead. Saving Whiterun from being buried in the ash of a temporary volcano was worth that. But they could've at least let him have his books.

He wasn't supposed to get a lot of visitors, either. But that might've been partially because otherwise, there'd be guests swarming his room the entire time. Again with the saving Whiterun. They all wanted to thank him.

No, he didn't want to be thanked. He wanted books.

Maybe he was getting a little moody about that. It was just hard to be cooped up like this. He'd never had to deal with it this much before.

So he was pretty surprised when he heard a knock on the door.

"Enter," he called out. It was fine, he was dressed. He could handle whoever it was.

Then the door opened, and a Dunmer lady in black robes walked in. She was a shorter one, with nice-looking features just beginning to show some age, and with tidily trimmed reddish hair parted to the side. The robes were adorned with a jagged blood red X on the chest, ringed by a segmented white circle. It all looked very serious.

But Kamian knew better, because he knew this Dunmer already. Her name was Zaryth, and she was the last person Kamian would ever expect to make an effort to look tough.

"Good afternoon," Zaryth said, a tad unsteadily. "May I close the door?"

Kamian laid his head back on the pillow, draped one arm over his face, and waved noncommittally with the other. "Be my guest. Take a chair, speak your mind, whatever. Good to see you."

He heard the door latch shut again. Then he heard a wooden chair scooting over the floor, and the sound of someone sitting in it.

Zaryth's voice said, "I haven't seen you since you woke up. I was… well, I was waiting for the right moment."

She had a nice voice. A little on the rough side, but it had this careful, scholarly-sounding tone about it. Made her sound like she knew what she was talking about.

Kamian said nothing.

Zaryth laughed softly. "I, ah…" She cleared her throat, then laughed a little again. More of a forceful exhalation, that time. "I rehearsed this moment a dozen times in my mind. Starting a few days ago. Now I don't even know what to say."

The Redguard lifted his arm off his face, and pushed himself up to rest against the headboard. He didn't try to look at Zaryth at all. His eyes were still closed. "What's on your mind?"

"Well, at the moment, I'm contemplating how much less threatening you look without your armor." Zaryth paused. "But it might also be because you're lying down. When you're standing up, you're… twice as tall as I am, or something."

"I'm fifty times as tall as you are," Kamian said dully. "I'm half giant. The other half is Aedra. I'm a Dragon-god."

Now it was Zaryth's turn not to say anything.

Kamian amended his thought. "Actually, I feel like trash. I hope you didn't take that at face value just now."

"I've seen your brother," Zaryth replied, slowly. "He looks like an Imperial. I suppose I was wondering about that too."

"I don't know. Life is strange." He shrugged, eyes still closed. "I look like a Redguard, he looks like an Imperial. I'm the prophesied Dragonborn, he killed Alduin. I can't read books, Zaryth. This is torture."

A few seconds went by in silence. He wasn't sure if he was being expected to say anything else.

Eventually, Zaryth asked hesitantly, "Can… you have books read to you?"

"I don't think the healers said. Did they bother you about coming in here?"

"Not very much," the Dunmer muttered. Which meant they probably had, and she'd responded by ignoring them.

So much the better, his mind was going to break from the isolation alone.

"I'm sure if it were on the table, they could have some servant read to me. You don't need to offer up your own time." At this point, Kamian opened his eyes again, and turned his head to look over at Zaryth. "I figure that's where you were going with it."

"But then you wouldn't have my historical commentary on whatever the text is about," she replied, like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. But then she hesitated again. "How did you, ah… how did you know I was thinking of offering that? It's not characteristic to expect of a Telvanni mage. I'm trying to surprise you here."

"You hesitated when you brought it up. If you'd intended to have someone else do it, you would've broached it entirely confidently. I know you're not entirely comfortable doing things like that for people, so when you hesitated, I knew you were thinking of the reading-to-me idea in terms of yourself as the reader."

Zaryth looked away and threw her hands in the air. "Oh, for the love of Azura. How can you people all see through me like that? Your mind is supposed to be fried like an egg and you're still doing it." She looked back at him with a perfectly irritable scowl. "I can't be that transparent. What are you doing?"

Kamian yawned. "Ask Thorald sometime."

"When he gets back. If he gets back." The Dunmer screwed up her face suddenly, then ran her hands over it. "Ugh. I'm trying not to think about that. Might as well not try and hide that from you, right?"

"He's gonna be fine. You know he is. People say his name in the same breath as Iseus' and mine. You should save your grief for all the Aldmeri soldiers he's probably cutting down right now." In terms of sheer likelihood, it probably wasn't even that remote. Being in the Black Machine meant going from one mission to the next all the time. Gods knew Cyrodiil was full of vulnerable places to storm through.

Zaryth sighed and slumped in her chair a bit. "I know, but still. … Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Yes," Kamian said.

"Have you ever felt that way for someone? That sort of… you know. A romantic connection?" She asked it like it was some sort of esoteric mystery, even for her. Which maybe it sort of was. "I was just… I was wondering if you have any thoughts for what it's like to deal with that. Having someone you might not see again."

"No," Kamian said.

The Dunmer frowned. "No what?"

"No, I haven't felt that way for someone. Or if I have, I… I don't know."

Suddenly, Kamian felt a lurching in his stomach. An awful, painful lurch. And it wasn't from the Thu'um thing. This was emotion, he knew that right now. Something was getting him. He bet he knew what it was.

"Oh." Her frown deepened. "But… you seem so nice, right? You're… you're good-natured, and… intelligent, and, uh… are you not attracted to people that way?"

"I have some problems," he replied, maybe a little too curtly. He didn't know how he was going to talk about this. His thoughts were steadily turning into a mess. Maybe he'd been conversing for too long. Maybe this was just bad territory. He didn't want to be rude.

"Well… you don't have to describe those, if you don't want to. I didn't come here to dredge up your own troubles. I…" Zaryth shrugged, part helplessly, part sheepishly. "You know. I wanted to keep you company."

"Thank you for that." There, he wasn't being rude. His goal was met.

"What about your brother? Did you ever worry about him?"

"Only when he was very young." And there came the emotions again. Kamian ignored them as best he could, just kept talking like usual. Voicing his thought. "He's seven years younger than me. I taught him how to fight as soon as he was old enough. It helped us survive. But once I saw how good he was becoming at it—no. I knew I didn't have to worry for him. I always had that protective feeling, but… yeah, no."

Zaryth's mouth was hanging open. She fumbled for words. "Wh… what were you doing? I don't… what? It helped you _survive?_ You're from the Maro family. Why would you need to protect him that fiercely? Or—or personally?"

Kamian didn't answer. He was focusing on his breathing. He needed to do that right then.

"You're from Cyrodiil," she said. Realization was creeping into her voice. "You're thirty-seven. You saw the Great War, didn't you?"

That did it. Kamian jerked suddenly, twisted over the edge of the bed—had barely enough time to grab the bucket, and then his stomach was ejecting everything. It came all out of his mouth, it was so acrid and it… somehow, as it was happening, he contemplated how he'd resented the healers putting this here. They'd said nausea might have been a symptom sometime. Well, here it was. His lunch was in a bucket. It was gross.

"Oh, gods!" Zaryth stood up suddenly. "Are you alright?"

He spent a while longer just hovering over the bucket, eyes shut, mouth open, waiting to see if anything else was going to come up. Then he leaned back a little, and sighed. Went for his jug of water, filled his mouth, gargled, spat that in the bucket too. "… All right, it's in my nostrils. This hurts a little."

"But are you alright?"

"Probably. I just had a … moment, there." The Redguard sighed again. "I'm sorry. It might be the mind-thing going on. Emotions are hitting me harder. I, uh… I guess I need a fresh bucket."

He didn't have it in him to be self-conscious about this.

"Uh…" Zaryth stepped close, put a hand over the bucket, and cast a frostbite spell on it. The whole mess froze solid. Then she picked it up, walked over to the open window, and hammered out all the shards with her fist on the bucket's underside. And then set it back down like nothing happened. "There."

Kamian hadn't moved the whole time. "… What's beneath that window?"

"Pavement, I think." The Dunmer shrugged as she sat back down in the chair. She pulled it a little closer to the bed. "What's going on?"

His eyes were awfully watery. Or just shedding tears. They did that whenever this came up. He sniffed and wiped them off with the back of his sleeve. "Congratulations, I guess. You're getting to see my ugly personal history. This is not a very Ebony Warrior moment."

Zaryth snorted. "Heroic reputations. If I've learned one lesson from all of you, it's that we're all people. Don't tell me you're falling back on that now."

"No… no, it just makes me feel very terrible about myself." Honestly, Kamian didn't know what he was planning to say now. He probably shouldn't have been saying any of this at all. "I don't bring this up. I don't… not often, anyway. Last time was with the High King, and he was a steward then."

"Oh." She paused. "How did it go that time?"

"Well, I couldn't finish the story." Kamian rolled back into his sitting posture against the headboard. "I… you know, I really like this bed. I usually just sleep on the floor. The beds in the Silent City are too small for me. And they're built right into the stone."

Zaryth stopped. She had a look on her face that Kamian couldn't really identify. But it didn't look happy. It looked like she'd just been hurt somehow. Maybe for how that insulted her work on making the Silent City more comfortable. "That's… that's really unfortunate. I never even thought of that. Not being able to fit in beds."

"Mm."

"When you get back to Blackreach…" She trailed off. No need to finish that thought.

"Make the doorways taller, too."

At this, Zaryth let out a sudden chuckle. She composed herself just as quickly. "Ahhh. I'm sorry. I shouldn't be laughing." Then she settled into place, and gave him a sober stare. "What's going on here, though? We're circling around something terrible. I can tell. It's weighing on you." She paused again. "I bet it's been weighing on you this entire time. Ever since you were a boy and the war happened. And you don't talk to people about it, and that makes it worse."

Those words might've cut awfully deep, but they were about ideas he'd already thought over plenty of times. It did feel a little strange hearing someone else say them out loud. This was what it was like in his mind. It would've been so much nicer to just distract himself with books.

"You're getting good at this," Kamian murmured. "Learning."

"Well, I've decided that I don't enjoy being good at this," the Dunmer replied decisively. "But here we are. Can you tell me what this is?"

"I don't know." And that was the truth.

"You could try. I'll listen. It helps when people do that."

For a moment, Kamian felt a sudden, bizarre urge to tell her to stop asking. To just… stop. He didn't know what it was about. But that passed. He was left where he was before.

"I feel terrible," he said. "About all of this. But you know what doesn't bother me, is that I'm not fighting that war down south. I'm sure I'll go eventually. But I'm not looking forward to it. At all."

Zaryth nodded slowly. "Why not?"

"Well, I've seen them before. Those Aldmeri soldiers." Kamian coughed. This was hurting. He couldn't describe how it was hurting, it just felt like a constant surge inside him. It wouldn't leave him alone. "So I was… I was nine years old. I lived in the Imperial City. Father was out being a legionnaire. I don't know where he fell, but he did. So it was just my mother, and Iseus, and me. Iseus was two years old, can you imagine that? He was the sweetest little… sweetest little baby you'd have ever seen. Learned quickly, too."

"So… what happened with all of you? The Dominion?"

Kamian took a deep breath in. "… Yes, them. I was nine, he was two. Our mother was so good. All of my memories I have of her… they're all good. Even the ones where I got in trouble for things. She was a Redguard, good with a bow, good with words, my father really loved her. I remember saying prayers to Akatosh and Mara and a few others for him. I don't know why it was those few."

"Something happened, though," Zaryth said. She just wasn't letting go. Maybe that was what she was trying for.

"The city got sacked. I'm sure you know that. The war had just been a lot of ominous news before that. I remember the food shortages, hearing about friends' parents dying… But it hadn't hit us at home. But one day, it did. You know what it's like to…" Now the emotion was really, truly here. He'd been trying his best to keep his voice steady, and it just wasn't working. It was all just welling up. He couldn't do it. "Have someone you can go to for anything, they're always there, always strong, they're your _world_. And then one day, you see them scared. She was scared that day. We could hear the… the noises outside, fire, battle, screaming, all of it. She told us to hide."

Kamian cleared his throat. He was feeling sick again, but his stomach was out of things to make him throw up. He just felt awful, again. He didn't know how he was going to say this out loud, even if he'd thought it over a thousand times. Ten thousand times. Even if it'd been part of his entire existence. He just wanted to say something, and he couldn't.

Zaryth asked, "Then what?"

"Then I took Iseus, and brought him to the cubby in the kitchen, and we both got in and just hid. I had to keep a hand over his mouth so he wouldn't make any noise. And the cubby, it… it was dark, and it had this door, with a little keyhole. I could see out, out into the main living space, past the hearth. I saw it all."

He took a moment to breathe. He couldn't stop now. He didn't know if he wanted to. His voice was a mess, he could hardly think straight, let alone talk straight, but he had to keep going.

"They broke the door open. My mother … screamed. Started pleading with them. They started breaking things, stealing our, uh… I guess our valuables. Tearing the whole place apart. And my mother, I'm sure she knew she couldn't stop them, she was just asking them to spare her, leave her alive, if nothing else. They just didn't care. Then they grabbed her, and forced her down on the table, and…"

Tears were running down his face. They always did when he thought of it. That one image. He couldn't bear to think of it.

This time, Zaryth didn't ask him for more.

"I… I just remember what their armor looked like. I don't know why that's what I remember. That ugly feather-looking golden armor. I just remember looking at that and thinking, what is this, it doesn't belong in my house. And then seeing my… my mother, she was just…" Kamian bit his lip.

He felt like he was going to faint. He was already in bed. Maybe it would put him out for another couple weeks. But even that didn't happen. He just kept having these thoughts.

"Maybe… maybe this has to do with your, uh…" He sniffed again, wiped at his face a little. It was very wet. He couldn't believe how much of a mess he was. This was the worst. But he had to keep talking, didn't he? "… Your question. Me not being interested in people. You know what I always think? Here's what I always think. I'm being totally… totally truthful about this. This is my actual thought process. Someone's nice, someone's attractive, maybe interested in me. I look at them. And I just think of what they might look like without all their clothes on. And that does it. I can't do it. Just acquaintances with the person, after that. It's so… so sickening. I just… I don't know. I just hate naked bodies. I really do. I can't stand them. They make me think of _that._ "

Zaryth still didn't say anything. There probably wasn't even anything to say to this. Even Kamian didn't know what to say for himself.

"I know it's not sensible," he added lamely. "… I guess that goes without saying. I just… I can't get that image out of my head. I just had to sit there, in that little cubby, keeping my brother quiet, and… watching these _strangers_ inside my house, making me look at my own… my own mother, in ways I'd never ever want to look at her. I couldn't stop looking out that keyhole. Just listening to the noise would've been even worse."

Now the Dunmer spoke up. She asked, "How did you survive?"

"After they were done with her, they left. They didn't do anything else. They just threw her down and, uh… one of them used a mace to bash in her skull. It took four hits. I remember that. Four hits. One—two—three—four. Done. Then they left."

"I'm sorry," she said. It sounded numb. She looked numb, too. "I suppose that explains… a lot of things."

"I don't want to go fight those soldiers. I don't want revenge. It won't bring her back. It won't…" Kamian wiped his face again. He kept having to do that. The tears weren't coming as much now, at least. That was his situation, here. Being glad about not weeping as much. "Won't change the fact that I had to grow up on the streets, and look after my brother, in the wreckage of the Imperial City. Who knows, maybe it was all part of prophecy. Maybe it was fate. If it'd happened another way, I might not have done my part for the world, and neither would have Iseus."

Zaryth said flatly, "That's sick." A brief pause. "That's a sick idea. I can't imagine fate requiring something like that. The Aurbis can't be that cruelly designed."

"Could be," the Redguard shrugged. He didn't know how he was feeling now. 'Composed' wasn't the right word. Maybe more like 'spent'. He didn't know what else he could be at this point. "In my experience, the only really just and righteous things in the world are things that mortals created themselves. Can't count on fate to make things right in the end."

"Maybe not," Zaryth sighed. She rubbed her eyes with one hand, then blinked and shook her head. "I don't know. … Thank you for sharing that with me, though. I don't know what I did to earn that from you. But I'm glad you could speak."

That was what he'd done, all right. He'd spoken. Now it was out there. The Ebony Warrior's grand secret was out.

"Yeah. I don't know." He shifted down on the bed, and laid an arm over his face again. "I bet I'm going to wake up tomorrow and regret this entire talk. Everything just… went completely wrong."

Zaryth's voice answered, "That's not what I was going to say. I was going to say it went completely right." She paused. "You're the greatest warrior in all of Skyrim. Maybe all of Tamriel. That's how everyone knows you. The big, scary mysterious man in scary ebony armor."

"Ebony Warrior," Kamian muttered.

"Yes. They call you that. I assume because whenever you're out there, you're always wearing that armor of yours. No one has to see you underneath. Even around the—I've been around the Black Machine, and most of them wear their armor all the time, but they at least take their helmets off. They at least look at each other's faces. You don't show an inch, whenever you can help it. You're hidden from everyone, even when you're in plain sight."

Another pause. Longer, this time. Eventually, the Redguard took his arm off his face and turned to look at Zaryth again. She was still sitting there, gazing at him. Her face was flickering with just a hint of a pained look.

The moment Kamian looked, Zaryth took a breath in, and spoke.

"It's not just your body that you're armoring, is it? You're putting all this armor around your soul. It took all these circumstances for you to speak your thoughts, and you're already saying it was a mistake. It's not. It's not, Kamian. You can't wall yourself off like that. Even if it looks like it'll keep new pain out. You should know by now—it also keeps old pain in."

Seconds went by in silence.

Kamian sighed slowly, closed his eyes, tried to think. He didn't know what he was thinking. "Sometimes… sometimes people have talked to me about their feelings. And I say things like that. Don't bottle it up. Be free with yourself. It's easy to say to people. It's not easy to do."

"No," Zaryth said. "It's not."

Indeed.

"For what it's worth, I do actually need my armor. My… physical ebony armor. It keeps me from dying." The Redguard opened his eyes again. Smiled a little, sheepishly. He knew that wasn't what Zaryth had meant, but… still.

Zaryth just snorted. "You definitely do not need to wear your helmet in Blackreach. Doesn't it get sweaty in there? Stop doing that."

"I put a lot of arming caps through the wash."

"I think everyone puts their arming gear through the wash." The Dunmer shrugged. "I'm trying to make a point. It's… is it working? Am I making my point correctly?"

"You're actually doing really well," Kamian said, a little dully. He still felt spent. It reminded him of how he felt after a day's training, except his limbs weren't burning.

"Well, that's good," she laughed—and shakily. "I'll be honest—I've had no idea if I've been saying anything accurate at all. My… heart is pounding, right now. I feel like I've been doing surgery with my eyes closed."

Kamian smiled again. He had to, at that. "It gets easier."

Zaryth put a hand on her chin. Stroked it thoughtfully with her index finger. She almost looked like a studious mage again. "Hm. … If it gets easier for me to listen, perhaps it may get easier for you to talk."

"Perhaps."

A little more time went by. Presumably, this was a chance for them to think. There must have been a lot of thinking to do. Mostly, Kamian just felt… honestly, he didn't know. His eyes were starting to hurt again.

He wasn't going to fight it. He couldn't even try, now.

More tears welled up. They ran down his cheeks, one after another. His face tightened a bit. He just waited for them to stop, then sniffed and wiped himself dry again.

"Thank you for talking to me," he said quietly. "I appreciate it."

Zaryth scooted her chair forward again, and reached out to put her hand on Kamian's shoulder. She had such a delicate little touch. It made him twitch involuntarily.

"You're welcome," she replied. "… Is this all right? The hand on your shoulder. I'm supposed to do this now. Making you feel better."

Kamian chuckled. Reached up with his own hand, laid it on top of Zaryth's own. "Yes, Zaryth. It's all right."

They stayed like that for a while. Zaryth just stayed where she was, looking right at him. He couldn't hold eye contact with that, he ended up looking down in his lap. But there wasn't much to complain about.

Not regarding this, at least.

"I guess this puts me on the list," Kamian murmured. "Another example of Blackreach and its people doing their healing thing. I don't even know why I kept myself out of this. I think maybe I didn't count myself as an example."

Zaryth asked, "What do you mean? You were one of the first people down there. You were there before me."

The Redguard shrugged. Zaryth's hand shifted a little on his shoulder, even with him holding on. "Well, uh… I mean, all I ever wanted to do was be worthy of Sovngarde. While my brother was defeating Alduin, I was off hunting down dragon priests. And that was how I got tangled up in the business with Konahrik. But if it weren't for that, I would've just kept going. I didn't have much else to live for."

He let out a slow sigh. Shook his head.

Then he added: "I don't know how that would've ended. I assume with me dying. I think maybe I kind of wanted it."

Zaryth leaned in the rest of the way, and hugged him around the shoulders with her free arm. Her head was right next to his. She smelled a bit like ash. Very warm to the touch. It made him twitch again.

When she pulled back away, she looked almost a bit tired. Made sense, considering. This must have all been trying on her too.

She sat down heavily in her seat again. Her hand was still on Kamian's shoulder. She squeezed it in her grasp, as best she could. "Don't die," she said. "Not any time soon. Please. I don't want to lose more people I care about."

Kamian looked at her with a very slow, wry smile. "… So, you're admitting you care about me."

Zaryth helpfully ignored that comment, and fixed him with an inquisitive squint instead. "When was the last time someone hugged you like that? If it's all right to ask. And, by 'like that' I mean without several layers of armor in the way."

"Uh…" Kamian looked away again. Now he had to think. He frowned. "… I have no idea. That made me feel a little strange just now. I don't know if I like it."

"For what it's worth, I felt a little strange too. But this is how it goes. I'm being your friend." The Dunmer pulled her hand off him slowly, and sat up straight again. "You just told me some incredibly sensitive things. I have…. No small amount of respect for that. I still don't know what I'm doing, though, really. So… hopefully, uh…" She sighed. "I'm mainly going by what I learned from Thorald. Thank him, not me."

"Thanks, Thorald," Kamian said obediently. "… I don't know. I hope I don't have to go over all this again. I just told you the ugliest thing of my entire life."

Zaryth nodded. Then she gave him a reassuring smile. "You don't have to, no. After all, I only told Thorald about the Red Year once. That was enough for the both of us, I think."

The Red Year. That would be the cataclysmic event that wiped practically the entire province of Morrowind off the map. Kamian assumed Zaryth had been there personally for that. Obviously, he wasn't about to ask about it.

And Zaryth was the one who'd said that the Aurbis couldn't be that cruelly designed. He wasn't about to question that either, at this point.

Maybe he'd learn about that more some other time.

"I guess I should get back to resting," he said. "The healers are probably just waiting to come in here and fix me back up."

The Dunmer smirked mirthfully. "Mmm. Clearly, I intimidate them more than you. … But all right. I suppose I've exhausted you enough for the day anyway. Do you know how long you'll need to remain here?"

"No, sorry. But…" Kamian reached out to her with a hand briefly, then thought better of it and let it fall on the edge of the bed. "Come back sometime, all right? … Please? I still can't read books. This is genuinely more entertaining than what I'd been doing before. Despite everything."

"Next time, we can talk about something nice. Nords with axes waging glorious mythical battle." She smiled again. Then she reached down and gave his hand a squeeze. Even compared to other people, she was so much smaller than him. "Rest now, Kamian. The world can wait for you."

"Thank you." The Redguard smiled back. Maybe it could. Or maybe it didn't matter, because he was stuck in here either way.

"Until next time," Zaryth said, as she stood up from her chair and returned it to its place. "I'll try and make it soon."

And with that, she opened the door and showed herself out of the room. It was quiet once again.

Kamian closed his eyes. He still didn't know entirely what had just happened. But he had a feeling it was one of those moments where a person's life would change in a span of minutes. Usually, that happened in times of crisis and violence. He didn't remember the last time it had happened in a time of healing.

But now his life had changed to a different path from before. He wondered where it would take him.


End file.
